


In Search of Ghosts

by UmbraeCalamitas, WhinyWingedWinchester



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dashingfrost - Freeform, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Jotunn | Frost Giant, Kidnapping, Loki & Thor Friendship (Marvel), M/M, Major Character Injury, Norse Bro Feels, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Presumed Dead, Rescue, Sif is a good bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 16:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20410630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmbraeCalamitas/pseuds/UmbraeCalamitas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhinyWingedWinchester/pseuds/WhinyWingedWinchester
Summary: When Loki and Thor are killed in an attack on the markets they were visiting, those on Asgard are left to mourn their passing. But the Jotun wield clever magic and the two princes are less dead than they appeared. Trapped at the mercy of their captors, they must work together to escape impossible odds, while Fandral and Sif's search for revenge turns into a search for two men who might somehow still be alive.





	In Search of Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheRiverScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRiverScribe/gifts).

> For TheRiverScribe, the brilliant and amazing person who brought us all together. 
> 
> Our thank-you to you, not only for giving us a wonderful friend in you, but giving Talky and I a sister and soul-friend in each other. <3 
> 
> We love you, Rivvy! xxx  
Talky & Trips

“It’s expensive and utterly ridiculous, and Sif clearly needs it,” Thor laughed as he handed over his coin bag to the merchant. “It will clash awfully with her hair.” 

“And people call  _ me  _ the God of Mischief.” Thor grinned over at his brother and took his package with a happy noise and a distracted thank you to the vendor. “Honestly Thor, what exactly do you expect her to do with that… monstrosity?” 

“It’s not a monstrosity,” Thor sniffed, “it’s a  _ hat _ .” 

“It’s half a dead toad with gemstones on it.” 

“You’ve just got no sense of style.” Thor led them easily through the crowded marketplace and back out to walk along the riverside. They nodded at a few familiar faces here and there, but were content to keep to themselves. He stopped as they approached the end of the markets, and felt as Loki stopped beside him, the familiar warmth of Loki’s hand on his back. 

Loki hummed contentedly around a mouthful of some sweet confectionery nightmare that he’d purchased without Thor realising, and leant his weight against Thor’s side. He let his fingers drift to play with his brother’s hair, longer now then he could remember it being for a long time and tugged playfully on a little braid he found hidden behind his left ear. “And what’s this?” 

Loki batted his hand away and muttered something around his treat that Thor snorted at.

“You seem distracted, little brother. Perhaps we should have invited Fandral along?” he teased gently. He glanced down at his little brother, but Loki’s entire body had gone completely still, and his eyes were fixed on something in the water “Loki?” 

_ “Thor! Get down!”  _

He shoved Thor to the ground, throwing a shield up around them just as the water erupted upward and at least ten Jotun leapt out of the river. Ice cracked and tore through the air, freezing the water and turning the air into a biting mist. 

Blue and white crackled along Loki’s shield and he grit his teeth, holding his seidr firmly in place. 

People were screaming, running this way and that. The Jotun laughed, some chasing after them, others just tossing ice after them. People fell, struck down or their legs caught in ice. The smell of blood and fear filled the air and Loki growled low in his throat, unsurprised to see the skies darkening overhead. 

“You can’t strike the water, Thor. You’ll kill everyone.” The dock was wet, and all the merchants on the water would never survive Thor’s electricity racing through the river. 

Loki looked at his shield, then at the nearest trio of Jotun, gathered together.

He flicked his fingers and called up a second shield, a wall of green light that encircled the three nearest Jotun. Loki had just a moment to appreciate their look of dawning horror before he twisted his hands and the shield snapped around them, slamming all three bodies together like a snapping rubber band. The jotuns’ heads made a loud cracking sound as they hit and all three went limp. 

Loki dropped the shield, sending the three bodies crashing to the dock. 

He surveyed the rest of the immediate area, his lip curling in disgust. “Let’s clean this place up, shall we?”

* * *

Thor opened his eyes slowly and groaned at the throbbing in his head that seemed to echo with his heartbeat throughout his entire body. Even his  _ toes  _ ached. He carefully moved his arms and legs, wincing faintly at the sensation of  _ something  _ broken grinding in his leg and clumsily propped himself up against the damp stone wall behind him. His armour and Mjolnir were gone, as was the ring he wore on his right hand that his mother had gifted him. 

_ “You’ll never be out of my sight with this, Thor. Do try not to lose it, darling.”  _

A first glance around told him he was in a cell. The second was that he was somewhere cold and deep underground, the faint patterns of frost and half-melted ice along the ceiling and floor giving it away. A small wooden bucket was sitting in one corner, and a few ratty and stained blankets were piled in another. There was no chance he’d be able to stretch out to his full length, nor even to stand. He sighed and thumped his fist on the floor before he looked back at the wall opposite. Dirty, moss covered stones and an iron door. 

And slumped over against the black iron door, was Loki. 

“Brother,” he whispered, and shook his head to try and clear it enough that he could move without vomiting. “Loki!” 

Loki didn’t move, didn’t stir at all. 

Thor grit his teeth and moved, the piercing pain in his broken leg easy enough to ignore as he dragged Loki back to rest beside him. 

Their clothing was singed, soot and dirt smeared all over their skin, but Thor couldn’t work out  _ why.  _

The last thing he remembered was tying up the Jotnar Loki had knocked out with his seidr and then - 

_Nothing._

He and Thor had faced numerous enemies in battle before and come out the victors, but they were hampered by Thor’s inability to use his lightning. 

For all that they acted like bandits, going after everyone within the vicinity, the Jotun were well-trained. Warriors. 

Thor brought Mjolnir crashing down on the head of another, and Loki twisted around a lashing blade of ice, stabbing his daggers through a Jotun’s eyes. 

The seidr blast took them both off guard. 

Pure magic, it was like gravity suddenly tripled, the air filling with a weight that drove Loki to his knees, bright yellow seidr sinking claws into his and tearing it apart. Chanted words on the peripheral of his hearing told him it was an active spell, but he couldn’t focus beyond the agony of his magic being torn out of him. He couldn’t hear the words behind the sounds of his own screaming. 

Something hot burned around his wrists and a wall fell between him and his seidr, cutting him off from his magic. 

The spell let up and Loki collapsed to the ground with a sob. 

Thor was shouting, the sky lit with lightning and rolling so heavily with thunder that it shook inside his chest. Loki got his hands under him, tried to push himself up. 

His entire body screamed in protest, his seidr lashing against its chains but unable to come to him. 

Footsteps on the ground near him had him sinking back down to his belly.

Fingers played at the sleeve of his armor, grasping at the hilt of one of his hidden daggers. The footsteps stopped. A hand grabbed his hair and yanked him upward. 

Hot blood splashed across Loki’s face as he slashed the dagger in an arc and split the Jotun’s throat. He was dropped, his head hitting the ground with a crack and the world bursting into bright color. Sounds swam around him and he was only vaguely aware of his dagger being pulled from his hands. 

Something bright filled the air in front of his face. Loki heard the fall of a body, the sudden quiet of the storm overhead, and then the light slammed into him. Everything went dark. 

Loki woke to still more darkness. His entire body ached, his wrists burned, and his head was pounding terribly. He tried to remain perfectly still, but the reach for his seidr was instinctive and when he hit the wall, it was like sticking his hands in a fire. He cried out, rolling away, onto his back, and trying to push through the flames even as he tried to yank his hands back. He fought against his natural instinct to grab his seidr and never let go. His hands shook and he was crying by the time he managed to pull away, the feeling of burning finally stopping. 

Loki shook as he laid there, trying to focus. Trying to keep from reaching back for his magic. 

“Thor?” he whispered, forcing his eyes open. The walls swam with colors, dots bursting and exploding with light, and Loki slammed his eyes closed, nausea churning in his stomach. His hands twitched and he clenched them into fists. “Brother?”

“I’m here, Loki.” Thor shifted as best he could, unable to help the faint groan of pain that escaped him as his broken leg protested the movement. “I’m right here.” 

* * *

Fandral threw his head back to laugh at Sif’s utterly disgusted expression, her would-be suitor slinking back to the table his friends were gathered at to lick his wounds and attempt to recover. 

“Ah, my love, my love,” he said breathlessly, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes as he settled back at their small table, “I will never tire of you verbally emasculating those stupid enough to think you an  _ actual  _ woman.” 

“Watch it,” she growled and he grinned and winked cheekily at her. Sif sat back in her seat and downed the last of her ale, slamming the empty mug down and glaring at it. “What a fucking moron.” 

“Well, in the idiots defense, you  _ are _ very attractive,  _ tërfili i ëmbël _ ,” he said cheerfully. “Come now, let me buy you another drink and then we’ll head home.” 

Sif glanced over at the table the man had retreated to and curled her lip. 

“Or,” Fandral said hurriedly, “how about we head home  _ now _ , hm? No doubt our wayward Princes will be home soon!” 

He held a hand out to her as he stood and smirked over at the idiot who’d propositioned her as they exited the rowdy atmosphere of the tavern and walked back out into the cool and quiet streets of Lower Asgard. 

Surrounded on all sides by the smaller stone and gold buildings and homes that made up the Lower areas of the citadel, it was easily Fandral’s favourite place outside of Loki’s rooms. There was never a rush to be anywhere down here. The people of the Lower level lived at a different pace than those in the Main City. It was as simple as it could be for mortals living in the shadows of gods. 

Fandral’s mood picked up again at the thought that Loki would soon be home. He’d been promised something sweet and something shiny, and Loki had never disappointed him. The man was a magpie, and Fandral could - and often  _ did  _ \- spend hours letting himself get lost in the books and trinkets and  _ things _ he had scattered everywhere throughout his rooms, wandering and lazing about as he wanted. 

Loki’s easy acceptance of him had been what made him so damned easy to fall in love with. He’d done his best though, to keep it to himself, though Sif knew and teased him often enough about it. 

But he was happy and content to love Loki from afar. To have him as the best friend he could ever hope for. 

“Maybe if we get there fast enough,” he said to Sif as they walked, “Kanil will… give us…” he trailed off and tugged Sif over to where a large group had gathered by the entrance to the Rainbow Bridge that led to the Observatory. 

“Fandral? What is it?” Sif asked him quietly. 

“People are crying,” he murmured. “Gathering about and… crying…” 

It wasn’t until he’d shouldered his way into the crowd that he heard the first of it. 

“They’re dead! The Allmother and Allfather have been taken to Vanaheim to identify them and -” 

“ - I heard from Eriksson, there’s nothing  _ left _ !” 

“Just Mjolnir and a pair of daggers,” said another. “A ring and a scrap of Crown Prince Thor’s cloak!” 

* * *

Sif hated gossip. 

She especially hated it when it made her worry. Grabbing Fandral’s wrist, she pulled him through the crowd, shoving people out of her way when they refused to move, and made her way to where Heimdall stood alone. Most people knew better than to crowd the Gatekeeper. 

“Heimdall, is it true what they’re saying? Are Loki and Thor dead?”

Heimdall’s eyes never stilled. The galaxies and stars that moved swirling constantly as he stared through the cosmos. “A group of rebelling Jotnar attacked the markets they were visiting. The princes took out almost half before they were brought low themselves.” He finally turned his head to look at them, his expression apologetic. “I am sorry, but they are beyond my sight now.”

“Beyond - beyond your sight?” Fandral repeated dumbly. “But nothing is beyond your sight. That’s… that’s the point.” 

He turned to Sif and grinned. “That’s the  _ point _ , Sif! Nothing is - is beyond… right?” 

Fandral didn’t dare to look anywhere except Sif’s face. “We’ll just go and wait in Loki’s rooms,” he turned to Heimdall and shook his head. “We’re going to go and wait there, because  _ nothing  _ is beyond your sight. Except my shadows, but no one else can use them, believe me I’ve asked. So, so that means they’re just - they’re just running late. That’s all. You’ll see.” 

Sif swallowed her own grief, wrapping an arm around Fandral’s waist. “Thank you, Heimdall. We will be in Loki’s room when the All-Father and All-Mother return.” 

She tugged Fandral around, forcing him to walk with her, and glared at the people who immediately tried to accost them for news. They were smart enough to back off, and Sif did her best to nod and make agreeable noises to Fandral’s continued self-assurances.

Loki could hide from Heimdall if he wished. She had seen him do it, and he had hidden her, as well. But after an attack such as what he said had happened, the younger prince would never have been foolish enough to do so. He likely would have used Yggdrasil to bring himself and Thor out of danger. 

That Heimdall couldn’t see him, and Loki and Thor hadn’t returned through Loki’s pathways, painted a grim image. Sif could hope Odin and Frigga would return with news that the rumors were false, but in her heart, she already knew the truth.

Her eyes burned but she forced the tears back, leading Fandral down the halls of the palace to Loki’s room. She wanted to open the door and find both princes there, escaped from the fight and asleep in Loki’s bed, but she knew even before she pushed the door open that such a thing wasn’t possible. 

Thor and Loki wouldn’t be coming home.

* * *

Loki wasn’t in his room. 

Everything was exactly where it had been when he left, and that just… reaffirmed in Fandral’s mind that they were just running late. 

“If they were gone somewhere that Heimdall couldn’t see, Loki’s rooms would change. Something - there’d be differences, and there’s  _ not.  _ They’ll be home any minute, and everyone is going to feel so stupid for thinking them dead. But not me. They’re not gone. Not gone, just late. Just late.” 

Fandral shoved his hand roughly through his hair, and ignored his usual spot in Loki’s room, choosing instead to pace. Because if he stopped, if he really thought about what Heimdall was  _ saying  _ \- 

“They’re just late,” he said again. “You’ll see. The Allmother and AllFather will come through that door any moment and tell us.”

Sif didn’t say anything. There was nothing she  _ could _ say that would help. Convincing Fandral he was wrong would only hurt him, if it was even possible. 

Instead, she took a seat at Loki’s desk and ran her fingers over the small statue of an owl he kept there. The stone was as smooth as glass, a shiny black that reflected the light. 

_ “It’s obsidian, Sif, from one of the volcanoes on Muspelheim. It helps me focus my visions so they’re less... scrambled. And owls are guardians of souls, you know. I use it to keep you idiots safe.” _

Sif ran her fingertip down the carved feathers of the owl. It was so small, sitting on a single carved branch with its wings tucked tight against its body. Innocuous. Much like Loki himself. 

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, studying the tiny carving and listening to Fandral mutter and pace. The door opened quietly behind her and her shoulders tensed. 

“Hello, my darlings.” The All-Mother’s voice was raw. 

Sif lifted the owl from the desk, the tiny figurine fitting easily in the palm of her hand. She slipped it into her pocket and turned to the door. 

Eir was standing just behind Frigga, and any hope Sif had been clinging to was washed away. The healer wouldn’t have left any of her patients, especially not Thor and Loki, if they had been brought back alive. She wasn’t here for them. 

Frigga’s red eyes were already swimming with tears again. She brought her hands up to her mouth, covering the trembling of lips twisting into a warped and wounded smile. 

“They’re dead, then.” It took Sif a moment to realize the words had come from her own mouth. Longer to realize to that Fandral wasn’t the only one whose breath was hitching. 

Frigga shut her eyes and gave a sharp nod, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered hoarsely, hiding her eyes against her hand. “They’re gone. My boys...”

The room was tilting and swaying, and the words that the Allmother was saying sounded like they were echoing down a long hallway. 

Fandral shook his head to clear it, and grinned at her. “They’re not gone,” he said easily. “They’re just late. You’ll see. They’re just hiding from Heimdall sight. Loki - Loki’s not gone. He’s just late. Not gone, just late. There’d be - there’d be differences and there’s  _ not.”  _

He shook his head again and took a step back. “They’re not gone,” he said again, louder this time, “not gone! Just late. You’ll see. You’ll see any minute they’re going to - Loki’s not gone. Just late.” 

Sif stood up to go to Fandral, but Eir grabbed her arm. “I have him. See to Frigga.” She pushed Sif toward the door. 

The All-Mother was leaning heavily against the door, her face in her hands and her shoulders shaking with sobs. Sif supposed the King was dealing with the kingdom. She moved over to the All-Mother and touched her shoulder gently.

Frigga looked at her, eyes red and swollen and looking nothing like the unbending queen she so often portrayed for the court. Sif’s lip trembled and tears slid hot down her cheeks. “Could you be wrong?” 

The All-Mother drew in a shuddering breath. “I pray to the Norns I am. Every second, I hope I am.” She opened her arms, an offer of comfort as much as a request for one, and Sif fell against her, her tears bursting free. Frigga’s arms were tight and warm around her, and the woman shook horribly despite not making a sound. Sif held her back with all of her strength, hoping she could do anything. 

Hoping Loki would step through the door and ask them what all the fuss was about. 

Hope seemed very far away, even if it was all she had. 

* * *

Eir reached out a hand for Fandral. “Sweetheart, come here, please.”

Fandral shook his head again. “Not gone,” he said again, and did his best to ignore the Allmother’s sobbing. “He’s  _ hiding _ ,” he whispered and clutched at the hem of his shirt. “Eir. He’s not gone. Loki’s not gone. Just late. You’ll see. Just wait. Any - any moment and he… they both - they’re not  _ gone _ !” 

He took another half-step back and shook his head hard. “Loki's hiding. He’s hiding. They’re not gone. They’re late. Loki’s not - he’s not -”

Eir stepped forward and grabbed Fandral’s hand, sliding her seidr around his arm so if he took to his shadows, she’d be dragged along. 

He didn’t run, though. He just kept saying how Loki was only hiding and wasn’t gone, and her heart ached for him. 

She cupped the back of his head and pulled him against her. “I‘m sorry, sweetheart.” She pressed her seidr against his mind, pushing at his consciousness. “You dream of your Loki, sweet boy,” she murmured, pulling sleep over him. 

Odin watched as Alvöru carried Fandral into the healing halls and set him down carefully into the bed. He brushed a hand over the boy’s brow and looked up at Eir with a sigh. 

“Is he alright, Eir?”

Eir breathed out a long breath. “He’s… not accepting it,” she said gently. “Or trying very hard not to.” She studied the young man on the bed for a long moment. “He should sleep for a few hours and hopefully when he wakes, we’ll be able to talk to him.” She sighed and looked up at the king. “I’m so sorry, Odin. Is there anything I can do?”

Odin rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. “What can be done?” he asked her quietly. “My sons are gone. The treaty with Jotunheim is null and void until I can speak with Laufey, and there is… there is nothing I can do to ease this for anyone.” 

He swept his hands out in front of him and shrugged. “I cannot even think to begin grieving yet. I fear once I start, I will not stop.” Odin put a gentle hand on Fandral’s head and let his thumb trace the boy’s cheekbone. “What good is it that we ancient ones live, while the young - the  _ good _ \- are snatched away from us before their lives even begin?” 

Eir nodded quietly. “Yes. I know what you mean.” 

She had been alive for a very long time. She remembered Bor’s reign clearly, and she had delivered Odin and both of his older brothers. She had delivered babies and she had set some of them into karves to burn on the sea. And each time, it was unfair that she remained while they died. She remembered delivering Thor as if it was only the day before, and she remembered the day that Odin brought Loki home. They had grown into beautiful young men, but she could always see the babies they had once been. 

But now Thor and Loki were gone, and here they were, ancient and old and mourning the ones who should have been their future. 

She wanted to do something to make this better, but even her powers had a limit. There was nothing she could do to fix this, and nothing that would make it better for anyone suffering the loss of Asgard’s princes. 

She looked back at Odin. “Let me know if you wish me to go to Jotunheim.” As a healer, she could travel to the realms Asgard did not have treaties with or were actively warring against, and the laws of the Nine dictated that healers were to be left untouched. They had to take an Oath not to cause harm, in most cases, and treat those who were in need, regardless of where they were from. Even the Jotun who did not agree with the treaty with Asgard wouldn’t dare to touch her if they valued their souls. “Whatever you need, Odin.”

“I thank you, Eir,” he said softly. 

Odin settled himself into the seat beside Fandral’s bed with a heavy sigh. “I think I’ll wait here. How long will you keep him under, Eir? I’d like to send their karves on tomorrow at dawn.”

Eir glanced outside. It was barely midday. 

“Two or three hours. Sleep may help to calm him.” Or dreams, she could hope. “And Sif could use a little time. I doubt she’ll leave his side while he’s awake, but she needs to grieve, as well.” She gave him a sad smile. “No more than that. I know there is much to do to prepare.”

* * *

Loki was stroking at his hair softly, telling him the story of his first shapeshift and how he’d been convinced he was stuck. 

“Time to wake up, Fandral,” he murmured quietly. “Can’t stay here forever.”

Fandral shook his head but Loki was already fading away, and he blinked his eyes open to the familiar sight of the healing hall ceiling. 

He turned his head to where Eir was standing beside Sif, Odin at the other side. “So,” he hoisted a grin to his lips. “What was their excuse for being so late?”

* * *

“Fandral.” Sif’s voice trembled and she had to swallow what felt like yet more tears. She slipped her hand into his. “They’re not coming home, Fandral. They’re preparing the karves now. Will you help me? You knew Loki best.”

“No.” 

Fandral shook his head as hard as he could and turned his face away, focusing instead on the ceiling. “No. He’s not dead. He’s late. Just late. There’s - no. Loki’s not dead. He’s just late.” 

She opened her mouth, but had no idea what to say. She turned to look at Eir, searching for some answer on what to  _ do.  _

Eir closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She nudged Sif out of the way and the girl released Fandral’s hand, stepping away from the bed and wrapping her arms around herself. She was hunched over in a way Eir had never seen her, like she was desperately trying to hold her broken pieces together. 

Gripping Fandral’s hand in hers, Eir gave it a squeeze. “Come with me.” 

She didn’t wait for him to respond, simply turned and left the room quietly. The main corridor in the healing halls was mostly empty, the only other occupant a young boy sitting in the small sitting area by the fireplace, kicking his heels as he waited for Sauma to finish with his mother. Eir studied him for a moment, but the boy seemed content to wait. 

The door opened and Fandral stepped out into the hall, looking unsure. Eir sighed and headed down the hall without a word. 

The very last door at the end of the hall led to the Preparation Rooms, where the bodies of the dead were taken to be prepared. They were washed with cleansing waters, dressed in their finest clothes, and prepared with the finery befitting their stations. 

Both Loki and Thor had already been cleaned and dressed, their hair brushed until it gleamed. It did nothing to stop them looking like wax statues, too strange to be real. Eir had stood in the room after they had been prepared, staring at the both of them and trying to make  _ sense _ of everything. But none of it made any sense. 

Pausing at the door, Eir closed her eyes. There were different kinds of cruelty. Showing Fandral in no uncertain terms that the princes were dead would hurt him immensely, and she hated to do it. But letting him continue to deny it all, letting Sif and Odin and Frigga take care of preparing their karves, and Fandral coming to realization only after it was too late to offer his own farewells, would be far crueler. 

With a steadying breath, she pushed open the door and held it for Fandral. “We have until sunrise tomorrow to prepare,” she said quietly. “Beyond that… take as much time as you need.”

Fandral stepped in slowly and stared down at Loki’s face. His hands were folded over his stomach, hair shiny and clean but his face looked wrong. 

“Loki?” He took a step closer and softly pressed his fingertips to Loki’s cheek. He felt like he’d been carved from wax. He was cold, too cold. “Loki?  _ Spottfuglinn minn _ ?” 

He touched Loki’s eyelids, but there was no flutter as he opened them. No warmth as his breath touched Fandral’s fingers when he brushed them over his lips. No curious prodding back at his seidr as he absolutely  _ flooded  _ Loki with it. 

_ Nothing.  _

“Loki! Wake  _ up _ !”

Fandral leaned over and put his hands on Loki’s shoulders and shook him roughly. 

_ Nothing _ .

He let go and staggered backwards, heart pounding and his stomach in knots. “Eir? EIR! WAKE HIM UP!”

Eir closed her eyes, her heart aching for this poor boy. She stepped into the room quickly, closing the door behind her. Fandral was frantic, his hands shaking in hers when she grasped his wrists. 

“Fandral,” she whispered, pushing him back into a chair and kneeling in front of him. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I’m  _ so _ sorry. He’s gone. They’re both gone.” 

“Eir please,” he whispered, “please. Please wake him up. Wake Thor up. Wake - wake them up. Loki is - Loki can’t be - ” 

Fandral looked back over at Loki - at the  _ body _ \- and then back at Eir’s face. She had  _ never  _ lied to him. 

“He’s… gone,” he breathed. “He… Eir? Wake him - wake him up?”

“Oh, honey, I wish I could.” She touched his cheek. “Fandral, I wish I could wake them, but they’re gone, sweet boy. So now we’ll make sure we send them off well.”

* * *

Sif stood in the center of Thor’s room and stared around at the items on the walls and shelves, the things that declared his strength as a hunter and a warrior. The quilt on his bed that his mother had made him. The painting that Fandral had gifted him years ago. The book that Sif had made him that contained pictures she’d taken with a Midgardian camera. 

Everything in the room had a story attached to it. How was she to decide what things to take to his karve and what to leave to be packed away or forgotten? 

She had done this twice before, for her parents, but then she’d had help from her sister and it had seemed somehow… easier. 

Part of her still expected Thor and Loki to walk back into the room at any moment. She tried to bury that irrationality down, but it kept leaping up at her, unwilling to be silenced. 

Pulling the scrapbook off the wall, Sif sat on the edge of Thor’s bed and opened it. She and Sigyn visited Midgard once every year. Their father had been a Midgardian and they were both born on the other realm, raised like Midgardians and never coming to Asgard until after their father had died, when Sif was almost fifty and still looking like a teenager. But they returned to Midgard once a year, visited their father’s grave and reminded themselves of where they had come from. And they enjoyed themselves, too, on the other planet, admiring the rise in their technology, the change in the people. 

The camera had been a gift from Sigyn for Yule and Sif had brought it back to Asgard and showed her friends, taking photos that they posed for and others they had no idea she was taking. The scrapbook was filled with photos of Loki with his nose in a book or Thor on the training fields, swinging Mjolnir. Fandral only half-there as he stepped out of the shadows, grinning at her in startled humor as she snapped the photo. 

There were some of her that the others had taken. One where she was standing over Thor, having soundly trounced him while sparring. Another where Loki had turned into a snake and she’d climbed up Fandral’s body to get away from him, the other man laughing so hard, he fell over and nearly squashed Loki under their combined weight. 

Her favorite photo was one that Odin had taken, picking up the camera when she hadn’t noticed and snapping the photo while the four of them were distracted. They’d been playing a game or telling stories - something - and burst into laughter at one point or another. The moment had been caught in the photo: Thor with his head thrown back as he laughed, one arm flung over Loki’s shoulders. Sif leaning against him, her face red and breathless, tears in her eyes. Loki with his head ducked down, almost shy in his amusement, and Fandral, grinning brightly - the culprit, Sif thought - with his forehead touching Loki’s, both of them laughing in the other’s breath. 

It had been a perfect moment. A beautiful time she wished they could have again. 

Sif carefully removed the photo, setting it aside. And then another of just Fandral and Loki, their arms wrapped around the other’s back as they smiled at each other, hands flickering with seidr and shared secrets. That one, she thought, Fandral would appreciate having later. 

She tucked both photos in her pocket and closed the scrapbook, pressing a kiss to the cover. Memories. Wherever Thor and Loki ended up, she hoped they were together. And she hoped they knew they were loved. 

* * *

“Get up.” 

Fandral glared down at the shaking trainee guard on the ground before him and pressed the tip of his rapier into his throat harder, watching the way the boys eyes widened and his pupils dilated as blood trickled down the side of his neck. “I said,” he hissed, “ _ get up _ ,  _ sorglegt veiki! _ ” 

“Enough!” 

Fandral didn’t take his eyes off the trainee but tilted his head slightly in the direction of Tyr’s voice, the faint clinking of the beads in his braids the only sound other than the trainees frightened panting.

“Let him up.” 

Fandral pulled his sword away and shook it free of the few drops of blood clinging to the end. “Pathetic,” he spat. “Go home little boy. Guard your bed from monsters. You’ll not stand guard here.” 

He ignored Tyr’s shouted demands that he turn around and speak with him, and shouldered his way past Sif. “I’m not in the mood,” he muttered to her. “Just fucking leave me be!”

It’d only be more variations of all the same shit she’d already said over the last six months. Nothing new, nothing changed. 

Loki was dead, burnt to ashes at sea with Thor, and they were left here to rot and die alone. Mortals outliving gods. 

Sif took a step to the right and blocked Tyr from following after Fandral. He bared his teeth in a snarl, so much like the wolf of the stories that took his hand. 

“I’ll talk to him,” she said softly. “I’ll handle it, Tyr. He won’t bother your trainees again.” 

“Next time he does, I’ll take him out, if I have to kill him.” The General glared at her and Sif nodded. Fandral had driven away half of the trainees in the last six months since the burning of Thor and Loki’s karves, and put four of them in the healing halls. Sif had been trying to get through to him by simply talking, but it was clear that wasn’t going to work. 

“I’ll deal with it,” Sif said lowly, staring back at him. She knew, even if Tyr didn’t, that the General wasn’t strong enough to take Fandral out. Loki had at least been a match for him, but with the princes dead, she wasn’t sure there was anyone left who was strong enough to take on the former thief with any hope of winning. 

She turned and left the training halls, ignoring the burn of Tyr’s eyes in the back of her head. Rubbing her face, she made her way to her room, stripping herself of her weapons and her armor and putting on loose pants and a simple tunic. She’d found less and less reason to wear her armor in the last months. Fighting in the training ring simply wasn’t the same without Thor and Loki there. Sif had hoped to one day stand at Thor’s side as his guard, if he would have her. Now that such a thing was impossible, she found her sword sat heavy in her hand, her armor weighing her down. 

She was tired. A kind of tired that sleep could never cure. 

She thought she might put up the sword. Trade in her armor for simple clothes. Maybe go somewhere else. Maybe back to Midgard. The life of a mortal seemed simpler than living in a world where gods could die. 

But not yet. The edge of her blade still hungered for one more battle, and she’d give it before she sheathed her sword for the final time. 

Stepping out of her room, she moved over to Fandral’s and knocked. She didn’t bother to wait for an answer, just pushed the door open and ducked the knife thrown at her head. It clattered against the stone wall in the halls. She shut the door behind her and turned to him. “Will you listen?”

Fandral snorted and turned his back on Sif, working to loosen the laces on his tunic and tossing it into the corner. 

“Are you going to give me a fucking choice?” Fandral huffed and braced his hands on the windowsill, glaring at the stones and wood. “Speak, Sif. Tell me it all again.” He shook his head. “Tell me again that Loki died and at least he’s died with Thor and not moved on alone. Tell me  _ again  _ that I am so  _ fucking lucky  _ to be alive!”

He didn’t feel lucky, she knew that. Some days she didn’t feel lucky, either. Loki and Thor had gone off to the water markets alone because Loki had wanted one last outing, just the two of them, before Thor’s coronation. He’d apologized to them for that, as though they’d be angry for him wanting to spend time alone with his brother before duty stole so much of them from each other. 

She hadn’t ever expected to be angry about such a thing, but then Loki and Thor had died and all she could think was  _ if only she had been there.  _ And she knew it was the same for Fandral. If only they had been there, they might have made a difference. If only they had been there, they might have been granted the mercy of dying alongside their friends, rather than going on alone, swallowed by their grief. 

Sif had once heard someone say that time healed all wounds. She suspected that person had never suffered a broken heart. 

Slipping a hand into her pocket, Sif pulled out the photos she had kept from Thor’s scrapbook. She kept them with her constantly, tucked into the pocket of the harness that wrapped around underneath her shirt, holding her spare daggers. She pulled the photos out and looked at them, before slipping the one of Fandral and Loki back beneath her shirt. 

She stepped forward and laid the photo of the four of them laughing on the bed within Fandral’s sight. “It isn’t luck,” she said softly. Why had she ever told him he was lucky to have not been there and died, too? It’d been the end of their friendship in one fell swoop. 

“A curse, maybe. Or a punishment. I don’t know.” 

Fandral looked down at the picture, at the photograph, and picked it up slowly. He remembered this day. Remembered the dirty joke he’d told, the way that Loki had leant in close to him, and he remembered looking into Loki’s green eyes and feeling absolutely content with the love he had for Loki. 

But that was then and this was now. 

He shoved the photo back at her, and stormed over to his closet. A clean shirt and cloak and maybe he’d go to the tavern. Or to Alfheim. Find a quiet brothel and ask someone just to help him… forget. The thought of it made his skin crawl and his stomach roll. He’d not fucked anyone in years, happy with the contact and quiet affection he got from Loki. 

“It’s a curse,” he said and yanked his shirt over his head, brushing his hair and braids back, and turning on Sif with a feral grin. “Loki’s dead and gone. And I am  _ so fucking lucky  _ to be alive still. Now get out of my rooms. I’m going to get drunk and fuck a whore or ten. And then, I’m going to go and clear out the rest of the pathetic recruits Tyr keeps bringing here.”

Sif stared at him for a long moment. Long enough that he started fingering one of his daggers. She knew that he’d stab her if she didn’t leave. She wasn’t entirely sure anymore if Fandral wouldn’t outright kill her if he felt he had a good enough reason. Whatever friendship and loyalty they had once shared had died with Loki and Thor. 

“I wanted to give you something first, if you’ll come with me a moment.” 

Fandral kept one hand on the hilt of his dagger but he nodded at Sif, just a small jerky thing. 

“Make it quick.”

Sif stepped out of his room and made her way down the hall to her own. She didn’t bother checking if he was following her - either he would or he wouldn’t. 

Getting down on her hands and knees, she pulled a small chest out from under her bed and lifted it onto the mattress with a grunt. She tended to keep things that were special to her in the chest, and since most of those things were weapons, the chest was fairly heavy. 

Opening the lid showed a myriad of blades, swords and daggers and a spear that folded up, as well as a bow made from the wood of a Muspelheim metal tree. She lifted that and set it on the bed for later, and pulled out the box she had tucked inside the chest. 

It was twice the size of her hand, made of a simple light wood that looked pale gold in the light from her windows. Tiny hinges on one side showed that the lid opened, but Sif had never been able to lift the latch on the front. But, of course, this gift hadn’t been meant for her. 

The box flickered with a light green shine - the remnants of Loki’s seidr from the locking spell, no doubt. Sif ran her fingers over the lid of the box and for a moment wished she had seidr just to feel Loki one last time. 

“I hid it so it wouldn’t get burned in his karve. He… he would have been upset if they’d burned it.” She stared at the box a moment longer, and then held it out to Fandral. “I can’t open it. But it was meant for you.”

Fandral looked at the box, felt his eyes burn at the feel of Loki’s seidr. He’d forgotten how it felt when it was pressed against his. 

He didn’t lift his eyes from the box. “What - Sif,” he brushed a finger along the box lid. “What the  _ fuck  _ is this?” 

Sif licked her lips, looking at the bow resting on her bed. She’d need to restring it and test her hand with it. It’d been years since she hunted with a bow. 

Sif tried not to think of the look on Loki’s face when he handed her the bow, earnest and nervous and shy. 

_ “I know you don’t use one but you collect weapons and it’s pretty and I thought... I just... I wanted to thank you for helping me with Fandral’s gift. I means a lot, Sif. He means a lot.” _

“Open it,” she whispered, not looking back at him. “You’ll know what it means.” What it  _ meant _ , because that was past and nothing had meaning anymore. 

* * *

Fandral sat in the middle of Loki’s bed and stared at the box. 

He hadn’t opened it yet. Sif had left him in her room, but he hadn’t stuck around. Things between them were… uncomfortable. His seidr reached out carefully, prodding at the latch on the front and he had to close his eyes against the fresh wave of grief that threatened to drag him down at the feel of Loki’s seidr mingling with his. 

The latch popped and the box gently opened on silent hinges. 

Fandral was grateful that he’d thought to come to Loki’s rooms to open it. The silencing wards he could feel still sunk into the very stone of the walls were the only reason he didn’t hold back the choking, loud sobs that broke free at what lay inside that box. 

Cleverly made from a gold he recognized as one he’d introduced Loki to, one found only on an odd moon near the ruins of the planet Titan, the snake was a beautiful thing. It’s scales were individually carved into the gold, tiny fragments of diamond dust sitting between each scale to make them glitter. Its body was studded with sapphires, all of which glinted and reflected the light beautifully. Two emeralds sat in it’s head, the exact shade of both Loki’s eyes and his seidr. 

Fandral reached one shaking hand out and the damned thing uncoiled itself, sliding fluidly up his arm and coiling around his bicep in a perfect fit. The piece of paper that fluttered down into his lap was the last straw. Fandral had grieved, not as much as he was sure everyone had expected, but it had been easier to simply throw himself into training. Into weeding out the weak from the constant influx of pathetic recruits Tyr insisted on bringing in. 

Now, as the tears finally started, as the sounds that ripped free of his chest as his heart shattered echoed around the room… now he didn’t know how he was supposed to  _ stop _ . 

* * *

Sif made her way back from the kitchens slowly. She suspected Fandral had left her room, but on the chance he hadn’t, she wanted to give him some time alone. She had seen what was in the box when Loki was still in the process of crafting it. She knew that the younger prince had intended to court Fandral, and always panicked at the last minute before asking him, afraid Fandral would say no or he’d lose the other man’s friendship for asking. 

He always had been the dumbest genius she’d ever known. 

Peeking into her room and finding Fandral gone, Sif stepped in and set the basket of food on the table. She had a bag in her wardrobe that Loki had given her that never grew heavy and held more than it should have from its appearance. She pulled it out and carefully filled it with the food Kanil has given her, before shucking the loose clothes she had been wearing.

Dressing in her armor, Sif slung her cloak around her shoulders and buckled her sword at her hip. A series of knives, daggers, and other equipment were tucked among her person, and she picked up the bow that Loki had given her. A few minutes later, it was restrung, and she had found the quivers of arrows she had tucked away. 

There was nothing she could say to help Fandral. Nothing that would ease the pain or make him stop training and attacking Tyr’s trainees. But she had to hope that Loki could do something, even without words or his presence. She had to hope that somehow, having that piece of him would help Fandral start to heal. 

If healing was possible at all. She wasn’t sure. 

But she couldn’t stay here anymore. Not among the ghosts of Asgard. Not with Fandral, who she loved dearly and who hated her now, looking at her with as much blame as she was sure he felt guilt.  _ They should have been there. _

Not in this place where the king and queen mourned the loss of their children and Asgard’s heirs separately, standing constantly apart as one fought to keep from crying and the other wondered why he  _ couldn’t. _

She couldn’t continue on alone in this place of pain and do  _ nothing. _

Sif looked around her room once more. She had some other supplies already packed in her bag - blankets, extra clothes, washing and medical supplies. She opened up the drawers to her desk, looking inside. 

The camera Sigyn had given her years ago was a tiny thing, no bigger than Sif’s hand. Digital, it let her view the photos on the device, and Sif thumbed it on and listened to it boot up. She clicked through the photos, smiling sadly. She didn’t think she had deleted any of them. 

When everything was done, if she was still alive, she’d go to Midgard and have all of them developed. She’d find somewhere to live and surround herself in the memory of her friends. If she survived. 

Part of her hoped she didn’t. Midgard promised a different sort of pain as she outlived all the rest of the mortals. Sif was tired of outliving everyone she loved. 

Slipping the camera into her bag, she pulled the photo from under her shirt. Fandral and Loki smiling at each other as they called their magic, arms wrapped around each other. Sif closed her eyes against the tears that came so easy these days and set the photo on her bed. Fandral would come looking for her eventually. Maybe. The least she could do was leave him that. 

She gave her room a final look, but everything she needed was already tucked away in her bag. Flint and small packaged bits of kindling, food and medical supplies, washing supplies, clothes. 

And then the less practical things that were still necessary. Her camera, with her memories. One of Thor’s cloaks that he’d left in her room at one point and she’d never given back. The little carved owl she’d stolen from Loki’s room. The bracelet Fandral gave her that hid a clever blade inside it. One of the ugly as fuck hats that Thor liked to bring home from different places - the very first one he’d ever given her. 

Memories. Things to remind her of why she was still fighting. Just once more. 

Sif made her way to the Observatory. She didn’t bother to say goodbye to anyone. There would be a big deal about it and she hated goodbyes. People would eventually realize she was gone and wonder, and they could ask Heimdall. She didn’t want to see anymore tears. Especially not tears for her. 

“Lady Sif,” the Gatekeeper greeted. “You are going on a mission?”

“Yes. One last mission.” She pulled the bracelet Fandral had given her out of her bag and slipped it on her wrist. She sighed a little to have it back where it belonged and not hidden away in fear of it being taken. She turned the to Gatekeeper. 

“Please send me to the water markets, Heimdall. I’m going hunting.”

* * *

Fandral wiped roughly at his eyes, the pull of his seidr in the bracelet he’d crafted for Sif enough to make the tears slow, if not stop completely. His shadow pathways opened, and Fandral stepped through into Sif’s rooms. They were  _ empty _ . 

Not of things, certainly. But of the things that made these Sif’s rooms. And of Sif herself. 

“Fucking  _ idiot _ ,” he murmured and moved over to her bed, fingers brushing the place on the edge that was still faintly warm. “Fucking Hel.” 

He picked up the small picture and blinked hard at the fresh burning pain of  _ more _ tears in his eyes. This - this was - 

_ “See? Just like this!”  _

_ “Fandral, we can’t  _ all _ manipulate shadows.”  _

_ “Just try, Loki. I promise, I’ll never let anything hurt you.” _

_ “I know… I trust you.”  _

Fandral traced his fingers over Loki’s face, over the green of his seidr and swallowed hard. A quick look about Sif’s room and he  _ knew _ . His own rooms were significantly easier to be done with. A set of leathers as familiar as his own skin were slipped on, a pair of comfortable leggings, one of Thor’s shirts and Loki’s thickest winter cloak were stuffed into his bag. Weapons of all kinds were tucked about his body and Fandral pulled his dragonhide boots on easily. 

He hesitated briefly, and then set the photo of the four of them laughing on Loki’s bed beside the box that had held his snake bracelet. Frigga would understand. 

Fandral gave the room one last, long look, swiped Loki’s journal and a pen and vanished in a swirl of shadow to where he could feel the pull from Sif’s bracelet calling him. 

The waterside markets were quiet, most of the stalls closed for the evening, and Sif was nowhere near as good at being unnoticed as he was. He didn’t speak, just fell into step beside her and slipped his hand into hers, their fingers entangling as easily as they always had. 

Sif squeezed Fandral’s hand back hard and clenched her teeth to stifle the sob that rose in her throat.

“Took you long enough,” she said harshly, looking away to her right and trying to wipe her eyes discreetly with her free hand. 

She’d expected weeks or even months before someone noticed she was missing. 

It’d barely been five minutes. 

“The merchant I spoke with said the Jotun that attacked went after everyone in the vicinity. Only a small group of them were focused on Loki and Thor.”

“Forgive me,  _ litla systir _ ,” he murmured. “I… I have no excuse.” He rubbed his thumb over Sif’s fingers in his, her hands rough with a lifetime of swordsmanship training and battle as he thought over her words. “The small group that were focused on them,” he said quietly, “would be the ones we need to track. The obvious place to start would, of course, be Jotunheim.” 

Fandral tugged on her hand to make her stop as they came to the small area that had become a kind of impromptu memorial for the princes. Bouquets of flowers, branches of fruits and small stones painted and etched with wishes were scattered around. “That small group of Jotnar wouldn’t have come _ from _ Jotunheim, nor taken them  _ to _ Jotunheim.” 

“Why not?” 

He licked at his bottom lip and frowned. “Because that’s what they want. They want to disrupt the peace. Killing Loki and Thor wasn’t random. It was an act meant to incite a war.” He grinned at Sif. “We’re going to Knowhere. I have a few contacts there. And they are the… easily  _ persuaded _ type.” He ran his fingers over the dagger at his hip and grinned almost wildly at her. 

“I do hope a little torture doesn’t put you off your food, love.” 

Sif studied the memorial for Thor and Loki, so deeply loved by everyone. So missed. They would be mourned forever. Sif knew she would never get over their loss. Fandral, too, would mourn them until he died.

Neither of them were lucky to still be alive, but since they were, they could at least avenge their fallen friends. They couldn’t bring Loki and Fandral back. They couldn’t stop the pain. But they could stop the people who took them. It wasn’t enough but it was all there was. 

She squeezed Fandral’s hand. “I trust you, _bróðir minn_. I will follow you anywhere.” 

* * *

Time had long since lost all meaning. 

His cell was all he knew. There were unscheduled times of the day when their captors would throw what he thought may have started out as some kind of bread or hardtack at them, and he had managed to scrape a small dent in the floor where the melting ice water could collect for them to drink. 

Any lingering sense of dignity had long since been taken away. They’d become accustomed to the sounds and smells of one another, and their captors were frightfully irregular at emptying the bucket in the corner. 

Thor grunted as he shifted the stump of his leg, pain shooting up through his knee and thigh and he thumped his head back in frustration. “I would kill to stretch out fully,” he said quietly, and Loki made an agreeing noise from where he  _ was _ stretched out on an angle across the cell. “Really Loki? Agreeing with me whilst you are, in fact, stretched out?” 

His little brother poked his tongue out and Thor scratched tiredly at his filthy and overgrown beard. 

Loki had been keeping a tally of the days as best he could, but when Thor’s broken leg had become frightfully infected, the tally had been ignored and forgotten in place of keeping him alive. Their pleas for help, for mercy or medicine had been answered with an axe being slid across the floor. 

Loki had swung only once, the blade thankfully sharp and well kept that once was all it took. Thor’s Apple had healed it over, and though it ached something fierce now, it was nothing compared to the agony of the infection eating his bones. 

He glanced up at the sound of a distant door opening and closing, of chains rattling and someone else screaming. “They’re coming, Lo. Sit up.” 

Their captors banged loudly on the door to their cell, and Thor winced at the sudden bright light that flooded the tiny space. 

“Tiny one,” the biggest Jotun grunted. “Come on now. Time to see what all the fuss was about.” 

Loki bared his teeth at the Jotun in the doorway, but he stood obediently. They had learned quickly enough that when one of them tried to be defiant, it was the other that suffered. Thor had suffered enough, as far as Loki was concerned, and he looked forward to the day when he could shove his hands in the Jotuns’ chests and rip their hearts out. 

He leaned heavily against the wall as he moved toward the door, hissing when one of the Jotun reached out to grab him. They always grabbed his shirt or his hair, twisting their claws up tight and yanking him wherever they needed him to go. For some reason, they didn’t seem to want to touch him. He wondered if the spell that bound his seidr would affect them, as well. Perhaps spreading it out across a myriad of people would give him some relief. 

In the months that had passed - nearly five, by his count, though he knew he was missing some days or weeks in there - he had grown somewhat accustomed to his seidr being bound. He had even managed to stop reaching for it automatically. It had been a harsh learning experience, the burn of the runes around his wrists scalding his skin like steam each time he forgot to tried to call up his seidr. 

The one and only time he had fought the pain and tried to push through, tried to call Yggdrasil, the runes had burned so hot that his sleeves had caught fire. Loki had ended up passing out from the pain, and when he woke later to a frantic Thor, it was to find both of his wrists burnt and blackened. 

They had healed, thankfully, and he retained full use of both of his hands, but the runes from the spell that bound him were scarred into his skin, a waxy shine like manacles encircling his wrists. 

It worked as a good reminder that as far as magic went, he may as well have none at all. 

The door shut loudly behind him and Loki tried not to flinch. He hated it when they took him out of the cell. He always worried that he would come back and find that Thor had been taken while he was gone, or killed. Loki had already been afraid once that he would have to mourn his brother, when the infection in his leg grew so badly that Thor was half-delirious with fever. 

But their captors clearly did not want them dead. Loki wasn’t sure  _ what _ they wanted, honestly. There had been no attempt at ransom that he was aware of. There had also been no one trying to find them, from what little he had been able to overhear. 

It wasn’t much. These Jotun were clever. Even when Loki feigned sleep, they tended not to speak near enough to their cell to be heard. He was only able to gain snippets of information here and there, and much of what he  _ knew _ was mere supposition. 

He was fairly sure their family thought them dead. It was the only thing that made sense, really. Fandral would have stopped at nothing to hunt them down, and the thief had always been the very best hunter that Loki had ever met. If there was anything to be found, he would have done so. Unless, of course, he wasn’t looking. 

Heimdall, too, would have searched. Or been searching. But the fact that the Gatekeeper hadn’t answered Loki’s calls for help suggested the place they were at either hid them from the man’s sight, or something had been put in or on each of them to blind Heimdall’s eyes to their presence. Without his magic, Loki couldn’t tell which. 

Without his magic, he couldn’t tell much at all, really. He was doing his best to hide the effects of it all from Thor, who worried about things he really shouldn’t bother worrying about. There was nothing to be done and so fussing was just a waste of precious energy. 

Sitting up made him dizzy, but standing, and worse,  _ moving,  _ made him lightheaded and nauseous. It was a byproduct of being cut off from his seidr. Seidr was soul, and having a wall between his consciousness and a part of his soul, while not fatal by any means, was extremely discomfiting. He had gone his whole life looking at the world with his magic. To suddenly not have that ability anymore was akin to a man having his eyes plucked out of his skull. Of course, Loki could still  _ see,  _ but everything was warped. The  _ life _ he could normally see in the world was missing. The shine of souls that burned under people’s skin and in their eyes was gone. Everything was very dull and colorless, and it was as though he had lost his depth-perception. Walking was a trial and he needed to lean on something to keep from falling over. 

He had grown accustomed to not reaching for his seidr, but he didn’t think he would ever get used to  _ this.  _

He missed feeling Thor’s soul under his skin. 

Shivering, Loki followed slowly after the Jotun. They were careful to keep people behind him to watch him. Far too damn clever, as far as he was concerned. Bastards. But none of them helped him, which was just as well. They would hurt Thor if Loki bit one of their hands off. 

“In here,” the largest Jotun said to the ones behind Loki, and he was herded into the small room. 

He almost turned and ran the moment he saw the medical bed and the leather straps. His feet froze in the doorway - too long - and someone grabbed his hair, twisting their hands in it and yanking him into the room. He screeched and lashed out, kicking one of them in the leg. It barely did anything. The Jotun just laughed and the door slammed shut, locking with a loud sound. 

Loki hissed at him, ignoring the way the world swam with greys and browns. “When we get out of here, we’re going to hunt down every last one of you monsters and cleanse the multiverse.”

The Jotun chuckled. “Every last one, hm?” He was shoved down onto the bed and the leather strap pulled over his chest. “Let’s see if you still feel that way tomorrow.” 

The Jotun grabbed his wrist in a hard grasp. It was cold, but not  _ burning,  _ not like it should have been, and Loki watched in horror as his skin began to turn blue. 

Thor dragged himself over to the door and shook from head to toe at the sounds of Loki’s screams. 

He knew better than to call out, to scream and beg. They’d only hurt Loki worse. His missing leg ached and throbbed, and he leant his back against the wall beside the door to wait for them bring Loki back to their cell. 

“I am… so sorry, little brother,” he whispered. “Mother, Father, Sif, Fandral… I am  _ so  _ sorry.”

* * *

Fandral twisted his finger and grinned as the Jotuns eyeball popped free of his socket with a wet squelch. “Now,” he said cheerfully as he crushed it beneath the heel of his boot. “Tell me again about the rebels. I  _ know  _ you want to.”

* * *

“Not so special after all, is he?” They laughed, not bothering to be gentle as they unbuckled the belts from around Loki. Their skin wasn’t cold at all against his own, blue and marked with raised lines. Jotun. He was Jotun. 

One of the Jotun grabbed him by the hair and yanked him up, but he had to grab Loki when he nearly toppled off the bed. 

“ _ Yn ddi-werth ci _ .” The man pulled him off the bed and Loki went crashing to the floor with a loud thud. The Jotun stood around him like a murder of crows, laughing. 

“Put him in the cell down the hall from his brother’s,” the large Jotun said, the smirk clear in his voice. “We wouldn’t want Asgard’s prince to kill the prince of Jotunheim, would we?”

Loki shivered. Prince of Jotunheim. Jotun. 

He was Jotun. 

Arms hefted him roughly, fingers curling in his hair and the collar of his shirt. He was dragged roughly out of the room and back toward the cell, but all he could do was stare at his blue arms and the lines that traced up them. 

Jotun.

* * *

“Loki?” 

Thor waited, but there was… nothing. The small slivers of light he’d grown accustomed to were gone, leaving behind a heavy and uncomfortable blackness and silence. 

No sounds from outside of his cell to tell him if Loki was coming back. No light to even see his hand in front of his eyes. 

Thor shifted his weight a little and pressed his ear against the wall. “Loki?” 

Thor’s voice echoed in the halls as he called out for Loki and the Jotun laughed. “Do you hear that,  _ rhy fach _ ? Your brother wants to see you.” 

They hauled him through the halls, ignoring his desire to stop or just lay down. If his legs didn’t move, they simply dragged him behind them by his hair and collar. 

“Let’s reassure the brute his brother is still alive.” He gestured at the door to Thor and Loki’s cell. “Open it.”

The Jotun shoved Loki to the ground and cupped a hand around the back of his neck, pinning him to the floor. “Don’t worry. If he tries to kill you, we’ll cut off his head,  _ fy tywysog bach. _ ” 

Loki shook underneath the man’s hand, tears freezing on his cheeks as his breath hitched. Thor was going to hate him now. 

The door finally creaked open, but there was no flurry of activity to let him know Loki had been shoved back inside. Instead. A horribly harsh and artificial light flooded the room, and Thor winced away from it, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes from what was easily the brightest light he’d seen since they were brought here. 

He didn’t dare to look at himself, not wanting to see the wasted muscle and filth, the stump of his leg. 

Thor blinked, pressed on his eyes and blinked again trying to bring everything into focus. The two big Jotnar he could only identify from their voices had another smaller, almost  _ tiny _ Jotun pinned down, its face peering into the cell. 

A face, Thor realised, he  _ knew _ . “Loki?” 

He shuffled closer, ignored the ache and stabbing of his missing leg and tried to understand what he was seeing. A curse? A spell perhaps to attempt to make him hate his brother? 

Thor glared up at their captors and bared his teeth, not noticing the way it forced his dry lips to split or the blood that trickled down into the mess of his overgrown beard. “This won’t work! Your spells and trickery won’t tear me from his side!”

“Of course, the perfect prince of Asgard thinks it’s a spell. Just a little trick to try and make him hate you as much as he hates all Jotun.” He trailed a claw down the back of Loki’s neck and through the fabric of his shirt from collar to hem. It slipped over Loki’s shoulders as he split the shirt in half and a thin line of blood ran down from over his spine. 

“We know better, though, don’t we?” 

Loki whined as his tongue ran up the length of his back, licking up the line of blood. 

“Thor Odinson, Prince of Asgard.” He chuckled. “Meet Loki Laufeyson, youngest Prince of Jotunheim. Although why the  _ bradwr _ king and queen chose to send a  _ runt _ to Asgard is anyone’s guess.” He growled in Loki’s ear. “I would’ve drowned you like the worthless pup you are.”

“Not a — not a spell?” 

He laid his head down on the filthy floor beside Loki’s and stared at him. 

He knew those cheekbones. Knew that nose and those lips. Reached out with one shaking fingertip and traced the marking in the centre of Loki’s forehead. 

The jotnar were beasts. They fucked in the streets whenever the need took them, and fought one another over scraps. They stole the young of other, more civilised races and ate them raw and screaming as delicacies. These were all the basic lessons that he and Loki had been taught over and over as they grew. Blakti’s tutoring had been viciously against all races that weren’t Asgardian. He’d always hated Fandral for being Vanir, and he’d especially hated it whenever Frigga’s sister visited. But the Vanir weren’t animals. They were clever seidrmadr and weavers of fabrics so fine that all the realms wore them, even the AllFather and AllMother. 

But Blakti was dead. His heart had given out on Yule morning, and they’d been declared old enough to no longer require a tutor. 

“You’re not…” he licked his lips and tried to shove Blakti’s nasally tones as he recited the many reasons the Jotun were animals. His fingers traced small bumps and lines and Thor stared in awe at the way Loki’s skin slowly faded back to Aesir pale beneath it. “You’re really… you’re still Loki.”

_ “A yw'n gwybod sut i newid? _ ” The Jotun standing next to Thor’s door was staring at Loki, his brows drawn down over his eyes. He looked at the other Jotun. “ _ Newidiodd ar ei ben ei hun _ .” 

The other Jotun growled and grabbed a fistful of Loki’s hair, ignoring Loki’s yelping cries as he yanked him to his feet. 

“Put the prince back in his cell.” He dragged Loki down the hall. 

The other Jotun kicked Thor until he moved out of the doorway and slammed the door shut, locking it. 

“Trust Odinson to grow weak in the last moment.” Loki was pulled down to the end of the hall and shoved through the door of another cell, separated from Thor’s by three other cells between them. “But don’t worry. Asgard already thinks the both of you dead. Soon enough, we’ll have them convinced Jotunheim is the culprit.” He smirked at Loki and the door shut with a slam. 

Loki lay in the middle of the cell, blinking to try and adjust his vision to the dark. 

_ “You’re really... you’re still Loki.”  _

Loki looked at the wall in the direction of Thor’s cell, his mind whirling in confusion. 

_ “Still Loki.” _

* * *

Fandral shivered lightly beneath the scrap of blanket he was curled under, and sighed. He watched his breath form mist in the air and rolled out of the small cot and onto the icy floor.

Sif was still sleeping soundly in the other bed, Loki’s thick and enchanted winter cloak spread over her, so he wriggled in behind her and curled himself over her back. Another month of searching had led them to a tiny backwater moon that orbited T’kui, a planet made of ice and snow and not much else. All it’s natural resources had long since been mined dry, but they’d been lucky to find this tiny cabin almost untouched. 

Fandral shifted closer to Sif and closed his eyes. As soon as the sun rose, they’d move again. Their last lead had come from a Jotun who’d been approached by the rebel faction and turned them down. He’d advised them to search the smallest and closest remote outposts in the realms, telling them that the rebel faction didn’t shift from their winter skins and would therefore be unable to hide anywhere it wasn’t frozen. 

Sif stirred in his arms and Fandral buried his face in her hair, exhaustion rolling back over him. “‘m comin’ Loki,” he mumbled. “Just wait for me.”

* * *

It was the sound of shouting that woke Loki. He sat up quickly, turning toward the door, and listened as the Jotun shouted words in the strange language they used that sounded like cracking ice and shifting snow. He’d begun to pick up a few words here and there, and listening brought him the words “ _ bradwr _ ” and “ _ tywysog.” _ Traitor and Prince. 

A door slammed open down the hall. After weeks, by his count, of being trapped alone in the room and relying solely on his hearing, he knew the sound of Thor’s cell down being opened. He listened closely and heard his brother’s pained grunting as he was forced to move his leg. 

Baring his teeth, Loki rolled onto the balls of his feet and stood up. The shift into his Jotun form came easily. With little else to do besides sleep and overthink, he’d found himself practicing the change. It didn’t seem to be connected to his seidr, so it must have been an ability inherent to their species. The change, as well as the ice he could call to his hands. Call and shape in the same way as he could shape his seidr. 

Their captors had made a mistake in giving him a weapon, and he fully intended to use it. 

He moved to the wall beside the door. The ice came easy to his hand and he formed it into a dagger, breathing steadily and listening for his chance.

* * *

Thor was shoved roughly into the wall, a thick band of freezing metal wrapped about his hands as though he were any kind of threat anymore. He leant his head against the wall, his mismatched body on an awkward and uncomfortable angle as he tried to keep it from tipping over. 

He’d lost track of the days again, a wet and painful cough beginning to truly sink its claws into his chest. But when he could, he’d focused on Loki.

His little brother. The one who likes to eat sweets that Thor was positive could power a ship they were so stuffed full of sugar. Loki who spends every minute he can twined about Fandral like an octopus. Loki who loved to sit with Sif and braid her hair while she sang him songs from Midgard. 

Loki. His little brother who was Jotun. 

Time spent alone and cold in the dark made things extremely simple. 

He loved Loki. 

Loki was his brother  _ and _ a Jotun. He turned his head and blinked blearily as their captors shouted something and yanked open Loki’s cell door. 

Thor wouldn’t be able to run. As poorly as they were fed during their captivity, Loki thought he would still be able to lift him, but he wasn’t sure he could carry him while fighting for their lives. 

Which left him with one option. He had to make sure all of the Jotun that had come into this area were dead before he and Thor could escape. 

When the door opened, he swung around on his heel and drove his dagger into the belly of the Jotun, twisting his hand into his collar and yanking the man toward him. A twist of the dagger and the man’s entrails spilled to the floor in a steaming pile. 

Loki let the man fall from his grasp and switched his dagger to his other hand, wiping blood on his ragged shirt. He summoned a small dagger to his empty hand, stepped out into the hall, and flung the dagger at the first man he saw. He went down with a scream, blood and pus bursting from his eye. 

Loki turned to regard the last two Jotun and bared his teeth in a snarl. “Run or fight, cowards. You’re dying today.” 

* * *

Fandral shoved the still cooling corpse of the nearest Jotun with his boot and turned to Sif with a grin. “We’re close,” he said quietly. “This has to have been them.” 

“I don’t know,” she said and crouched down, fingers tracing the odd ice blade sticking from its eye socket. “It seems more likely this was more Jotnar or even someone acting from inside.” Sif glanced up at him, and Fandral closed his eyes. “Neither of our boys use ice, Fandral.” 

Fandral let his breath out in one slow exhale and nodded. “Right. Let’s keep looking then, and if there’s nothing here… then we’ll move on.” 

It was a long-shot, really, but the people they had spoken to, both willing and not, had all suggested the same thing. Loki and Thor had been  _ captured,  _ not killed. 

They hadn’t dared to believe it at first. They had both seen the bodies of their friends. They had watched their karves burn. But then one of the Jotun had formed a perfect facsimile of Sif from  _ ice _ and explained how easy it would have been to create a body that wasn’t required to move or breathe. 

That had been one of the decent Jotun they’d encountered. One of the few who had openly discussed the rebellious groups that existed on Jotunheim, refusing to change out of what they called their Winter Forms, living in their own social groups in the  _ Old Ways.  _ The way of the current king’s father, who had died right before the end of the war. 

Whose death, perhaps, had  _ allowed _ for the end of the war. 

The picture that these Jotun were painting, both the decent and indecent ones they encountered, was not the one Sif would have expected. “I wonder if we couldn’t enlist help from Jotunheim’s king.” Sif pushed the door open to the dungeon cell, grimacing at the rancid smells that reached her nose. “Ugh! Fandral, someone was kept here for… a while, I’d guess.” 

She pressed a sleeve over her mouth as she moved into the room, squinting her eyes in the dim light from beyond the door. There was a bucket in the corner that hadn’t been emptied in a while, the remains of what looked like some truly lousy food, and…

“Fandral!” She moved to the door and stepped out into the hall. “Fandral, there’s a lot of blood in here.” 

The blood-stain was enormous, and thickly congealed into the cracks between the stones on the floor. It was old, though. Months at least. Fandral knelt down beside it and felt his stomach clench. 

“Amputation or stab wound,” he muttered and dragged a hand over his mouth. “Sif. D’you still have that powder from that healer on Alfheim? The one she said was for identifying remnants of seidr?” Sif nodded and rummaged about in her bag for a moment, handing over a tiny bottle of glittering white powder. 

Fandral popped the cork and stuck the tip of his index finger into it. It fizzed and popped against his skin, tiny sparks of pure magic landing all around him before he brushed it over the stain on the floor. 

The entire cell lit up with an almost blinding flash of crimson magic that knocked Sif back onto her ass and made something panicked settle in Fandral’s gut. 

“Thor,” he said softly. “Sif, he’s fucking  _ hurt _ .” 

Sif stared at the crimson burn of the seidr. She had never seen Thor’s magic before, not being a seidr-user herself, but the healer’s powder apparently made that possible. 

“And still somehow hidden from Heimdall.” If the Gatekeeper had regained his ability to see the princes, he would have sent them word. “We’ve been through the rest of this compound. Where could they have gone?” Anywhere, with Loki’s ability to walk Yggdrasil, except if he was able to walk her branches, he would have gone home by now. 

They still had the exterior of the compound to check. Sif shoved herself to her feet. “Let’s see if we can find out if they’re still on-planet.” 

* * *

“Loki, please… I can’t --” Thor grit his teeth against another surge of pain that radiated up from the stump of his knee to his hip, and let just a little more of his weight fall against Loki. “Just leave me here.” 

He’d taken a blade to the thigh as they made their escape from the compound, just a small thing, but in his worn down and sick state it was enough to truly slow him down. Another cough that shook him from head to toe forced its way out of his lungs, but Loki refused to let him go. 

“There’s a small area up ahead with runework burnt into the ground. They had to get here somehow, brother,” Loki had said softly. “We’re going to find it.” 

The runework had been a dead end, and now they were hiding in a small cave from a fierce snowstorm that had blown over. Loki had taken some trinket or another from one of their captors that he was playing with over and over, but Thor was  _ tired _ . He shifted where he was leaning against his brother and sighed. 

“Leave me here,” he said again. “Find a way home and then come back for me. Find - find Fandral and Sif. Bring them with you.” 

He wouldn’t be here. If he could convince Loki to leave him, he could stop trying to  _ survive _ .    
  


Loki wrapped an arm around Thor’s shoulders, tugging his brother closer to him. Now that he had shifted back into his normal skin, he was less concerned about hurting his brother accidentally. He knew Jotun skin could give an Aesir frostbite, but he didn’t know how to make it happen or keep it from happening. 

But in his normal skin, there was no fear of hurting his brother with his Jotun abilities. He wished only that he still had a cloak with him, or access to his seidr. 

“I’m not leaving you. Not for a moment.” He pressed his forehead gently to Thor’s. “Not ever. We go home together or not at all.” 

He played with the rune-stamp he had taken from one of the Jotun. It was a small device meant to marking runes to bone, usually used on animal bones to perform complex magic. But it could also be used to mark the bones of a living creature. Loki thought he might know why it was Heimdall couldn’t find him, but the rune-stamp required seidr to use, and Loki’s had been sealed off. He could probably hold against the burn of the runes around his wrists long enough to access the rune stamp, but he didn’t know if he would be able to concentrate well enough to use it safely. 

He twisted it around in his hand over and over, pads of his fingers tracing over the small raised lines on the metal. 

“Thor, can you still access your magic?”

Thor sighed and nodded. “Aye,” he murmured, “I can still feel it.” 

Dulled and barely there though it was, he could still feel it. Felt the lightning still, though it felt like he had something thick and heavy in place of the usually fluid and warm feeling of his storms. 

“I can’t… manipulate it the way you and Fandral do, brother. But yes. It’s there.”

Loki nodded. “That’s all right. We can work with that.” He held the rune-stamp up for Thor to see. “I think I know why Heimdall can’t see us. I think they’ve marked our bones with runes to hide us.” 

He lowered his hand into his lap, keeping the other around Thor. “I don’t think it will be difficult to figure out which bones have been written on. And then we can fix the issue.” And by fix, he meant breaking the affected bone, but he had no intention of telling Thor that. The fucking idiot would demand it be his bones that were broken and like hel was he letting his brother be hurt at all again. 

“We’ll deal with that later, though.” He slipped the rune-stamp into his pocket and wrapped his hand around Thor’s, entwining their fingers. “Do you remember that day when we were little when I was upset that all of Mother’s flowers were dying because winter was coming? You summoned a storm on the cusp of winter that had Asgard as warm as if it was Midsummer. Do you remember, brother?”

Thor frowned for a moment, fighting to make his mind focus through the haze of the fever he could feel settling over him. He did remember though, a tiny and desperately sad Loki sobbing over wilting flowers and refusing to wear his winter cloak. 

“I… remember,” he murmured. “Should I do that now?”

“No.” He shifted away from Thor, leaning with his back to the wall and crossing his legs beneath him. “Remember the feeling of summer. It is the season at the height of life. The world around us was dying as winter set in, falling to sleep, and you called life back into Asgard. Just remember how it felt to hold it. Summer in your hands. Do you remember?” 

Thor nodded slowly. “I remember.” 

“Good. That’s good, Thor. Summer is life at its height, fully woken. But before that is spring. Waking and growth.” 

He gripped Thor’s shoulders and guided him into moving, lying back on the ground so his head was resting in Loki’s lap. He ran a hand over Thor’s forehead, frowning at the sweat beading his brow. Another fever. 

“Do you know the feeling of Spring, brother? Do you remember the light rains that melt the snow and wake the trees from their slumber? The storms that are gentle enough to roll overhead but never tear a single petal from a blossom? Can you feel Spring?” 

“Spring.” Thor turned his head just a little, pressed his face into Loki’s thigh. “I remember Spring.” 

Warm and gentle breezes. Soft rain and damp grass and flowers. Loki smiling as Fandral braided flowers in his hair. Sif red eyed and sneezing, swearing and stomping about as she dripped and sneezed through the season. 

His mother’s gardens in full bloom and her arms full of a new bouquet everyday. Fandral’s awed expression when the pink peonies bloomed every year. 

“Spring is warmth and sneezes and Fandral’s peonies,” he mumbled. “I know Spring.” 

Loki ran his fingers through Thor’s hair, sliding his other hand around the back of Thor’s and slipping his fingers in between his brother’s. 

“Yes, brother. Warmth. Fandral’s wonder and Sif’s swearing. Flowers blooming and Mother’s smiles.” 

He leaned his cheek against Thor’s forehead and stared at their entwined hands. “Growth and birth and healing. Can you call Spring to your hand, Thor? Not in the sky, but to you?”

Thor blinked heavy and tired eyes, but he focused on the feeling of Loki pressed against him and their fingers twined together. He turned their hands over and did his best to focus. 

Spring. 

Warmth, growth and healing. 

Thor closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, concentrating on all the familiar feelings that Spring was. He opened his eyes and stared in wonder at the perfect crimson peony in their palms. “Spring,” he rasped out, and grinned. “Peonies and sneezes.”

Loki turned his head and pressed a kiss to Thor’s hot skin. “Spring,” he agreed softly. 

He guided Thor’s arm up and used his other hand to pull his shirt apart, pressing the peony against Thor’s chest, their entwined hands overtop of it. 

“You know how to guide your lightning, Thor. Now I need you to guide Spring. Take a deep breath and breathe it in. Take it inside and let it touch the parts of you that are unwell.” He pressed a kiss to each of Thor’s eyelids. “Spring is healing, Thor, and growing. Rejuvenation. Guide it to the parts of yourself that need healed, and let them work. I’ll be right here with you the whole time. I promise.”

* * *

“Sif!” Fandral reached blindly behind him for her hand and tugged her into a small space between two fallen trees. “In here,  _ litla systir _ . This storm is too much.” 

And there was no point in opening his shadowpaths. Where would they go? If they used those to walk the planet, then they could miss something small. And Loki and Thor  _ had _ been here. Recently. 

But now the storm that had been simmering in the distance all day was right overhead, the snow falling so thick and fast he could barely see at all. Fandral used his seidr to bolster their shelter as best he could and set out the waterproof sheeting on the ground, tugging Sif down into his lap and wrapping Loki’s cloak around them both. 

“It’ll pass,” he murmured. “And when it does, we’ll find our Princes.” 

* * *

Thor had fallen into a deep sleep, his breathing slow and steady. Loki couldn’t see properly without his seidr, but the peony Thor had summoned had dispersed into a fine mist the same shade as his seidr and he’d inhaled what hadn’t sunk into his skin before falling asleep. He had no reason to think anything had gone wrong. 

“I’m so proud of you,” Loki whispered, running his fingers through Thor’s hair. He let his fingers crawl with ice and guided it to warm and melt gently over Thor’s head, massaging his fingers through the locks and cleaning out the dirt and grime. It was slow-going. Neither of them had bathed since being captured, which was likely half of the reason Thor was so ill. 

If it had worked as it should, and he prayed it had, Thor’s sleep should have been a deep healing trance, his body and his seidr focused completely on healing himself and not on outside forces. 

With the storm raging outside and an unknown number of Jotun still running around looking for them, Loki had no intention of leaving the cave. And certainly no intention of leaving his brother. 

He called ice into his hand and melted it, focusing on the shift of his body’s forms to warm the water in his hand, and gently cleaned Thor’s face. More ice and more water, and Loki cleaned his neck, then his chest, his arms, and so on. There was nothing he could do about their filthy clothes, but he washed the knife wound in Thor’s leg as best he could. 

He wiped himself down quickly, not bothering with anything below his hips, unwilling to move Thor more than he already had. He turned his attention back to his brother’s hair, running his fingers through it and beginning to braid it as he watched the storm rage outside. When it cleared, he’d figure out what next to do.

* * *

“Aaand… all done. I gotta tell ya man, you’re one fuckin’ tough bastard, sittin’ there in one full sitting.” 

Fandral tuned out the Midgardian man’s rambling praise and gently turned his neck to and fro, watching the way the massive snake seemed to almost move as he did. Coiled tightly and starting just behind his right ear, the snake wrapped down and around his neck, looped once across his shoulders and wound its way down his left hand, the tip of its tail ending in a ring around his ring finger. 

“It’s gonna take a while to heal, mate. Keep it clean, keep it dry.” He nodded along with what the man said, already feeling the tickle beneath his skin of the Apple healing it. It’d be fully healed before he left the store. 

Fandral left a small pile of their local currency on the counter, ignored their protests it was “too fuckin’ much mate!” and walked out. 

Sif was waiting outside, sipping at something bright blue and covered in cream that would have made Loki proud to see, and flicking through a magazine. She looked calm, and exactly like the rest of the Midgardians nearby, dressed in barely anything at all. A scrap of fabric scarcely covered her breasts, and a tiny pair of blue shorts teamed with bare-feet completed her look. Fandral walked up behind her, shirtless and dressed in low slung and loose fitting shorts that the locals had told him were called ‘boardshorts’ and strange rubber things on his feet they called ‘thongs’. The snake that Loki had crafted him hadn’t left his right bicep since he’d opened the box it’d been in.

“Well, hello there gorgeous,” he said and plopped himself right into her lap, propping his feet up on the chair opposite. “And what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” 

Sif snorted and tossed her magazine aside. “According to that man over there,” she tipped her head at a young man limping away, “you should be calling me a ‘sheila’, and addressing me as a ‘hot piece of arse’.” 

Fandral snickered and buried his nose in her throat, pressing a soft kiss there and closing his eyes. 

Almost a year and a half now since their last solid lead on Thor and Loki had died when they’d found the cave they’d obviously been hiding in, only to step back outside in time to see a ship taking off, the echoing sound of a jump point opening above their heads had their hearts sinking. But they hadn’t quit, refusing to give up on Loki and Thor. 

A year ago, Idunn had found them both as they were trekking through some backwater planet on the outskirts of the former Kree Alliance, and given them a golden apple each. Fandral had hesitated with his, turning to Sif and finding a matching look on her face. 

“Promise to stay with me?” he’d asked her, and Sif’s answering nod and their quietly spoken vow to stay by each other’s side, to be one another’s eternity, had made Idunn smile and vanish as suddenly as she’d arrived. 

“So,” Sif said after a while as she set her now empty cup down and tipped her head back to kiss his cheek with blue stained lips. “Where to now? We can’t stay on Bondi Beach forever.”

Fandral hummed and then sighed. “We’ve checked Midgard,” he rubbed his nose along her jaw and groaned. “We even checked Hala and you know how much I-” 

“Hate the Kree, yeah I know,” Sif laughed. 

He sighed and tipped his head back. “I don’t want to admit defeat,” he whispered, “but it may be time to just… head back to Asgard. We’ve been gone almost two years.” 

* * *

Loki sat on the edge of the cliff overlooking the forest far below, his legs dangling over the edge. The sun was setting and the leaves of all the trees were turning a brilliant gold. His eyes tracked through them, finding the massive scar in the forest where their ship had come down a year and a half ago. The vegetation was beginning to grow up around it, but it would be a while before the wound was healed. 

Loki traced his fingers down the scars on his arm where he’d been caught in the twisted metal of the ship. The thing had been old and rusted, no doubt doomed to crash, and the wounds had gotten infected. Thor had cut out the infected skin with one of Loki’s ice blades, and now deep furrows like valleys ran through his bicep. 

He sighed and dropped his hands, turning his attention back to the rune-stamp. For a year and a half, he’d been trying to teach Thor to manipulate his seidr. He had healed himself well, but manipulating the natural magic of the seasons was different from learning to make his magic do what he wanted. 

They’d finally managed a small victory, though. 

There were runes on their bones blocking Heimdall from finding them. He had taught Thor to follow the magic of the stamp and see what bones were marked, and his brother had done so. Except the Jotun apparently didn’t believe in such a thing as overkill. 

The runes were stamped down his spine, written across his vertebrae. Breaking just one could get Heimdall to see them, certainly. 

But if he did, he’d probably never walk again. If he survived at all. 

Loki stared down at the forest far below. He wanted to go home. And it was tempting. Even if he died, Heimdall would see him. He would send someone to this planet and they would find Thor. His brother would get to go home. 

But Loki had made him a promise. Both of them would go home, or neither of them would, and he’d hate to break that. 

And he was a selfish creature. He had things he wanted to do. Dying wasn’t one of them. 

With a sigh, Loki pushed himself to his feet and grabbed the string of rabbits he had killed on his way to the cliffs. He would just keep training Thor to use his seidr. Eventually, his brother would be able to open a doorway to Yggdrasil and they could go home. 

Eventually.

Thor glanced up at Loki as he settled himself back on the chair he’d carved, the rabbits skinned and on the spit above the fire already. Loki was a remarkably patient teacher, but Thor had heard his brother’s quiet sobbing in the night when he thought Thor asleep. He’d heard him whispering prayers to Yggdrasil, begging her to hear him. Heard the way he would call out for Fandral in his sleep, only to jolt himself awake and leave their cave before Thor could open his eyes. 

So he’d waited until Loki left today to try his best to summon a doorway. And he thought he may have gotten closer. 

“Loki?” His brother looked up at him from where he was poking at the coals of their fire and smiled. 

“What is it, Thor?” 

Thor returned the smile easily enough. “Watch this.” 

He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, breathing out slowly and focusing his seidr as Loki had shown him. A brilliant crimson peony appeared in the air between his palms, and Thor exhaled carefully over it, letting the petals scatter onto the ground. They flickered and sparked, and the faintest sound of tree branches rustling and a soft voice without words calling to them drifted back up from the scattered petals. 

Thor opened his eyes, panting hard, and grinned at his brother. “Almost.” 

Loki shut his eyes and listened to Yggdrasil whispers. She had been such a huge part of his life for so long, not being able to hear her reassuring words or advice had been heartbreaking after his seidr was blocked. To hear her now...

He wiped tears from his eyes and moved to his brother, wrapped his arms around him and pressing their foreheads together. 

“You’re doing remarkably,” he said softly. “Truly, Thor. You’re learning quickly and I’m so proud.” He pressed a kiss to his brother’s forehead. “No more practice tonight, though. You need to rest and eat.” He smiled fondly at Thor. “If we can hear her, then perhaps she can hear you. Tomorrow.”

* * *

Fandral sat up in the bed he was sharing with Sif and stared over at the shadows in the corner. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but his dream had been so realistic that he could almost still feel Loki’s touch on his cheek. 

** _Lost. Find them! We found!_ **

He gently shook Sif awake and nodded at the corner where the shadows were twining over and around themselves, desperately trying to keep his attention.

“Sif,” he said softly, “I think we’ve got a lead.”

* * *

Loki woke suddenly, the sky outside still dark, his every muscle tense. He wasn’t sure what woke him and lay still next to Thor, listening intently. 

The low cracking of ice had him sitting up quickly, rolling onto the balls of his feet and moving to the entrance of the cave. 

The sigils he had marked around the entrance, an easy enough thing for Thor to power, glowed softly as they hid their cave from view. Loki stared out into the darkness, letting his form shift to Jotun, his red eyes better suited for the darkness. 

There were four of them. 

Loki glanced back at Thor, still sleeping. His brother had learned the necessity of discretion, so Loki didn’t hesitate in moving back over to him and placing a hand over his mouth. He woke with barely another touch and Loki put a finger to his lips. 

“They’ve found us,” he murmured. “Try to call Yggdrasil again, just enough to hear her. She’ll hear you. I’m going to try to lead them away.” He kissed his brother’s forehead. “Be safe, Thor. Stay hidden.” 

He left before his brother could protest, slipping out of the cave and into the night. He had the benefit of over a year of hunting these lands. He knew them better than the Jotun. 

And he’d left a few surprises for the bastards, too. 

Let’s see if they still thought him worthless then.

By the fucking  _ Nine  _ how he hated that he’d lost his leg. Day to day it didn’t bother him so much, and after so long now he’d grown used to it. But now, like this, he was useless to Loki. 

Thor closed his eyes and breathed deep and slow, focusing on his seidr. The peony flickered but it was there and he whispered to it in desperation to please,  _ please  _ open. 

* * *

Fandral had Sif’s hand tightly in his, their fingers entwined as he led them through the shadowpaths. They stepped out into a deep forest, the sounds of quiet bird call and animal chatter around them. Fandral turned to Sif, ready to tell her it was time to search when the agonised screams of a Jotun in pain hit their ears. 

“I know that sound!” Fandral nodded at Sif and she grinned. “Someone’s hurting a Jotun, Fandral!”

“It’s a little disturbing that we find that to be a positive sign,” he mused and then shook his head. “Lead on, my sister.”

Loki ran through the forest, dodging around the traps he had laid out. One of the Jotun was screaming in pain from the wall of sharpened sticks that had swung down and impaled him, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. 

Loki grabbed the thick tree branch as it came into view and used it to swing himself over the pit trap he had dug beneath it. He landed on the other side with a grunt and kept running. 

The Jotun right behind him wasn’t as lucky. His screams only lasted a second before going silent. 

People overlooked the power of a sharpened stick. That was a deadly kind of ego. 

“Two down,” he muttered, sliding to a stop and looking behind him. The other two hadn’t chased after him directly, and he could only hope they hadn’t found Thor. 

Instinct alone had him ducking, the spear of ice shooting over his head. It impaled a tree behind him with a loud crack. 

He didn’t succeed in dodging the second and felt his ribs break against the force of the ice that hit him, knocking him onto his back. 

The massive Jotun from the dungeons stepped into view, swinging a sword made of ice, and Loki bared his teeth at him. 

“Now, now, _ fy tywysog bach _ . Is that how you greet an old friend?”

They’d followed the screaming, gaped in awe at the sight of the Jotuns caught in such simple and wonderfully barbaric traps, and  _ known in an instant.  _ It was Loki. 

Sif had taken off in the direction of the seidr they could sense, and Fandral had pressed on, stopping abruptly and barely able to remember how to breathe when he realised what he was seeing. 

He was flat on his back in the dirt, an enormous Jotun towering over him with a blade drawn and snarky comments falling from his lips, but Fandral couldn’t take his eyes off Loki. Thinner than he could ever remember, but not unhealthily so. He looked like he just needed a few weeks with Cook Kanil feeding him. His hair was long, and Fandral’s fingers ached to braid it. 

He took a half step closer, but moved with the shadows when the massive Jotun pressed his sword against Loki’s throat. Fandral wrapped his legs tightly around the bastards shoulders, grateful for the strength the Apple had granted him, and propped his chin on the beast’s head. He winked down at Loki and casually stuck a little blade deep into the Jotun’s eyesocket, twisting it roughly and yanking it back out, the gooey remains of the eyeball falling from the blade and landing with a sick sound. 

The Jotun was screaming and Fandral clapped a hand over his mouth. “I’m going to slit your throat now,” he whispered in the bastard’s ear. “And I’m going to do it very, very slowly. Because it’s going to make me  _ happy  _ to do so.”

Loki laid back on the ground and pressed a hand to his ribs. They ground against each other in his chest, making his stomach roll. Thor was going to be angry. Worse, he was going to feel guilty, the idiot. 

He watched impassively as the knife was drawn slowly across the Jotun’s throat. His blood was hot, despite the icy cold of the skin Fandral’s shadows were guarding him against. 

Loki wondered if it was possible to go mad from homesickness. He thought he might have. Unless he wasn’t mad at all, but dead. That was a distinct possibility. Probably more likely, really. 

He hoped Heimdall had found Thor when he died. 

“Loki?” 

He blinked his eyes open, unsure of when he had closed them. The Jotun was lying dead on the ground and Fandral was staring at him. Loki wondered if the blue of his skin put him off. Then again, Fandral had moved to defend him without hesitation. As though he didn’t even notice he was Jotun, or he’d known, or it didn’t matter. 

He sighed softly, eyes studying the other man. The sides of his head had been shaved and the rest of his hair grown long and braided with beads, some of which Loki recognized from his own collection of trinkets. Ones he’d imagined time and again braiding into Fandral’s hair. 

And of course, the snake bracelet he had made for him, intended as a courting gift he had never been brave enough to give him. It was wrapped around Fandral’s bicep. He stared at it for a long moment, his heart aching and weary. 

“Hello, beautiful dream,” he murmured, letting his eyes slipped closed. “Fandral  _ would _ be my Valhalla.” 

Dead, then. Dead and abandoning his brother when he’d promised they’d both get home. Sworn to himself over and over that he would get his brother home. 

God of Lies.

* * *

It was different, being able to feel Thor’s magic. Over a year since she’d eaten her apple and she was still getting used to it. 

But it was definitely, absolutely Thor. The feeling of thunder rolling against her senses could be no one else, and Sif moved toward the storm, her steps silent in the forest. 

She was glad she hadn’t rushed when she caught sight of the Jotun ahead of her. 

She was glad that she’d had Fandral as a teacher once she’d come into her own seidr. She was nowhere as talented as he was, but she was sure it was only his careful instruction that let her see the shimmering outline of the cave entrance beneath the veil of magic that covered it. 

Sigils and runes made something look like that, he had taught her. Like there were layers folded over one another. 

The Jotun clearly knew that there was something here, but he wandered around the area, muttering under his breath, unable to see what was clear to her. 

Sif lowered herself into a careful crouch and pulled her bow from over her shoulders. She knocked an arrow quietly and drew the string back. 

The Jotun’s head split like a watermelon and he dropped to the ground with a thud. Sif rose to her feet, knocking another arrow and moving to the entrance of the cave. 

Reading sigils and runes wasn’t a skill she had acquired yet, but she could feel Thor’s thunder and smell rain across the shielded area. She kept her bow at the ready just in case, but moved toward the outline she could see. 

Seidr tingled against her skin, running over and against her own like a dog sniffing for danger. It was like rain pattering over her, though she didn’t get wet, and despite her wariness, nothing else happened. She moved through the seidr and the hidden wall and into a cave. 

It was dark and difficult to see, especially after the brightness of being outside. Sif crouched low to the ground, blinking her eyes to try and make them adjust. 

There was a shift in the cave, movement, and the quiet sound of breathing other than her own. 

“Thor?” 

Thor sat up carefully and stared at the woman in front of him. Sif looked much the same, and yet completely different. 

He grabbed the crutch Loki had helped to make him and got up slowly. “Sif?”

When she nodded, Thor limped forward and flung himself at her.

* * *

“Your Valhalla? Loki! Wake up? Oh fuck, please. Please wake up?” 

* * *

“Fucking hel, Thor.” Sif clutched the other man to her, sinking to the ground and just holding onto him. Even finding clear evidence that they were alive, had  _ been _ alive, she’d barely dared to hope. 

“You look like fucking shit, you asshole.” She pulled back far enough to press a kiss to his lips, before looking down at his stump of a leg. “I should’ve shot that last one in the balls instead.”

* * *

Loki frowned at the frantic note in Fandral’s voice. He was never worried when Loki dreamed of him. His Valhalla should have been much the same - Fandral beautiful and brilliant as always, whispering sweet words and touching him softly. 

“I’m not asleep.” He opened his eyes with a sigh, regarding the other man. He looked different than Loki expected. The hair was definitely not something he would have thought, but apparently his mind had picked it up somewhere. 

His eyes traveled to the bracelet around Fandral’s arm. He felt a little cheated that he hadn’t gotten to give it to Fandral. Even a fake version of Fandral he was allowed to spend his eternity with. 

“I don’t suppose you know whether or not Heimdall found Thor.”

Fandral shook his head slowly, unable to take his eyes off Loki. The blue and the horns, the red eyes and the claws were all slowly fading back to the pale skin he remembered. They’d been told that Loki was a Jotun, but seeing him alive and in front of his eyes was something else entirely. Fandral reached out tentatively and put just one hand on Loki’s still-blue shoulder and had to fight down the urge to fucking cry. 

He was  _ real.  _

“I don’t know about Heimdall,” he whispered, “I haven’t been back to Asgard in nearly two years.”

Loki stared at Fandral’s hand where it was pressed against his skin. He could feel the other man’s rapid pulse against his skin, the warmth of him. Not cool or illusory. Not a construct. 

“Fandral?” He tentatively touched the other man’s hand, swallowing hard. 

He pushed himself up with a hiss, curling his arm around his broken ribs but forcing himself through the grinding pain of them. Both of Fandral’s hands were on him when he opened his eyes again, the thief’s expression worried and still full of wonder. 

Loki stared at him for a long moment, studied his eyes, still the same gold he remembered from a thousand wonderful memories and dreams, but there was something more in them. A flicker of gold dust, ancient magic that he knew from his own eyes and Thor’s. He touched his fingers to the man’s face, tracing his cheekbones, lips twitching as the short hairs on the side of his head brushed over his fingertips. 

Loki curled his hand around the back of Fandral’s neck. “You’re real, aren’t you? You’re really here.”

Fandral nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Loki didn’t care about words. He pulled Fandral down and crashed their lips together, honey and coffee and the salt of his own tears on his lips. It was better than any dream he’d ever had.

* * *

Thor shuffled backwards and cupped his hands around Sif’s cheeks. He could feel it now, the faint tingling warmth of the Apple. 

He grinned at her before he pressed a fond kiss to her nose. “I’ve missed you so much,” he murmured and held her tightly to her for a long moment before he sighed and pulled away. Thor used his crutch to limp over to the entrance, Sif right at his side. “We should go and find Loki,” he said and peered out. “Did you come alone?”

Sif laughed. “You really think Fandral would have let me come here alone?”

* * *

Fandral was the one in Valhalla now. Loki’s mouth was warm and perfect and  _ there _ . His tongue was pressing insistently at Fandral’s lips and he opened his mouth easily to him. Fandral’s hands drifted up and tangled in Loki’s hair, yanking him closer still. 

The frantic pace of their kiss changed, slowing and softening, becoming sweet and chaste at the end. Fandral pressed his lips once more to Loki’s and let his forehead rest against the other mans, one hand braced on the back of his neck and the other gripping tightly to Loki’s waist.

He shuddered from top to toe, but couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes, just in case. “I can’t even put into words how much I’ve missed you, Loki,” he whispered. “Like half of my very being was torn away.”

Loki huffed a laugh that came out sounding more like a sob. “They told us everyone thought us dead. We’ve been trying to get back home since they took us.” And they weren’t out of the woods yet, literally or otherwise. “There were four of them that I saw. I only took out two.” 

“And I got the fourth!” Sif called cheerfully, and Loki whipped around to look at her. His relief at the sight of her, and Thor with her, would have taken him to the ground if not for Fandral’s arm around his waist. 

“You are a beautiful sight, Sif.”

She smiled fondly at him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Not nearly as beautiful as the two of you.” She traced a hand down the arm he had pressed against his ribs. “You’re hurt.” 

Loki grinned sheepishly. “He caught me by surprise. How did you find us?”

Fandral tried to hide the way he was shaking and rubbed a hand over his neck, fingers unconsciously tracing the outline of the massive snake coiled around it. 

“It was my shadows,” he said quietly. “They woke me, screaming and shaking me that they’d found you. And while we were walking here… they were leading the way.” 

Tugging and pulling, shouting at him to _ hurry hurry hurry _ ! 

Fandral opened his eyes finally and sighed. “If there’s anything you want to take, grab it now. I’m taking the two of you  _ home _ .”

Loki slipped his hand into his pocket, checking that he still had the rune-stamp. He looked at Thor. His brother was honestly the only thing he was determined to take back with him, and Loki wrapped an arm around his waist and pressed their foreheads together. 

“Home, Thor.” He shivered a little at the thought. If he woke up and this proved nothing more than a dream... 

“Take us home. Please.”

Fandral’s seidr was warm and familiar, and Thor let himself shiver under the feel of it. Loki was gripping tightly to one hand, Sif to the other. The blindfold was thick, soft and  _ clean _ , and Thor almost wanted to keep it. 

“Okay,” he tipped his head in the direction of Fandral’s voice. “Five steps forwards, one left and we’ll be in the healing halls of Asgard.” 

The shadows felt cool but friendly, tiny wisps like gentle breezes that tickled at his bare skin, and even helped to support him. He’d gotten better at moving around with one leg, and the crutch helped, but this was something else entirely.

He followed the gentle tug of Loki’s hand, and stumbled hard when the ground shifted again beneath his foot, the somehow still familiar smells of the healing halls filling his nose. Lavender, yarrow and that ever present  _ healing  _ scent that he had never been able to describe. 

The blindfold slid free, and Thor blinked in the harsh lights. A loud crashing and screaming from the left side had him blinking and then grinning. “Hi Sauma!”

Alvöru stared at the group of people, half of whom were supposedly dead and the other half that had been missing for two years, and burst into laughter. He was still laughing minutes later when Eir stepped through the doorway and stared at them. 

“You stupid fucks,” she whispered.

Loki smiled weakly at the healer. “Hello, Eir. We’re not dead.”

“Yes, I can see that.” She studied the both of them, her eyes lingering on Loki’s arm and Thor’s leg. “All right, you two!” she snapped at a crying Sauma and Alvöru, who was still sitting on the floor and laughing, tears streaming down his face. “Pull yourselves together! Are you healers or not?” She pointed at Loki and Thor. “You two assholes get in a damn bed right this instant, or so help me, I’ll kill you again.”

* * *

Fandral refused to leave Loki’s side. 

Thor watched with a bemused smile as Eir tried again and again to nudge him out of the way, to untangle his hand from Loki’s or to simply shout at him. 

But Fandral simply turned his head this way and that and refused to look at her, pretending he couldn’t hear her. 

He tilted his head at Sauma’s sad little noise as she examined his leg and shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said quietly. “They broke it when they took us, and the wound got infected. They uh, they gave Loki an axe and…” he smiled, a lopsided curl of his lips. “Well. I’m alive.”

“Eir! I am not moving!” 

Thor and Sauma both turned to look at where Loki was laughing silently into his hand, the other held tightly between both of Fandral’s as he towered over the Healer and glared at her. He noticed the way that Fandral’s eyes were  _ glowing  _ with power, his skin shimmering as he glared at Eir. 

“Is that so, little boy?” The Healer grinned up at Fandral, and Thor snickered. 

Eir glared back at Fandral for a moment, then simply picked him up and dropped him into the bed next to Loki. “Stay.” 

Loki gave up trying to hide his mirth and threw his head back, laughing loudly. 

He drew Fandral’s hand up and pressed a kiss to the back of it. “You shouldn’t argue with healers.” 

Eir snorted. “Shout it from the rooftops.” She ran her seidr over Loki’s ribs, checking the healing she had done already. “You’re damn lucky you didn’t pierce your lung.” She grabbed his head and pressed a firm kiss to his cheek. “You fucking twat.” 

She moved over to Thor. “How are you, idiot?”

Fandral scratched at the shaved side of his head and huffed quietly. “I’m willing to concede this one,” he mumbled. He turned his hand over where it was still gripping tight to Loki’s and then reached carefully into a tiny seidr pocket and pulled out the note that had been with the snake bangle. 

“I’ve never read it,” he said quietly, “but I’m hoping I didn't misunderstand the meaning behind the gift?”

Loki smiled softly and took the piece of paper from Fandral’s hand. “I’m guessing you mean you never opened it.” He opened the note and held it out for Fandral. 

The neat script that had originally been on the piece of paper had been rubbed clean from his worrying hands. 

“I was too nervous to say anything, but things became really clear while we were away. I told Thor, when we got home, I was going to ask you to marry me. So, Fandral, will you marry me?”

* * *

Thor leant his head against Sif’s shoulder, the quiet words being spoken by Loki and Fandral in front of Idunn bringing tears to his eyes. His mother had her hand right in his, and Odin stood on their other side. Fandral’s bicep glittered in the sunlight, the clever golden snake wound around it wriggling slightly. Thor traced the lines of the massive snake tattoo around his throat and wiped at his eyes as Loki’s eyes slipped closed, the green of his cloak catching on the carpet of peonies as he stood on his tiptoes and flung his arms around Fandral’s neck.

Sif made a quiet sound beside him, and Thor pressed a kiss to her cheek. “If they kiss any longer, we’re going to have to splash them with cold water,” he whispered and Sif’s wet sounding laugh was enough to make Fandral and Loki part. 

He grinned happily at them, their matching golden rings and bright smiles enough to make him warm from head to toe. 

“Well they certainly took their time.” Thor glanced over at Heimdall and nodded. “I owe Eir ninety gold pieces.”

“Aye,” he laughed softly, watching Loki and Fandral as they whirled past in a flurry of gold and petals. “But time is one thing we have enough of.” He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, letting the sun wash over him. “And she fleeced me for seventy.”

He was  _ warm _ . He was home. And he finally felt whole again. Missing leg and all. 

*****

* * *

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Translations: 
> 
> tërfili i ëmbël - sweet clover   
Spottfuglinn minn - my mockingbird  
sorglegt veiki - pathetic weakling  
litla systir - little sister  
bróðir minn - my brother  
“Yn ddi-werth ci.” - worthless dog  
rhy fach - too small (runt)  
fy tywysog bach - my little prince  
bradwr - traitor  
“A yw'n gwybod sut i newid - does he know how to change   
Newidiodd ar ei ben ei hu - he changed on his own


End file.
